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Infant feeding experiences help shape flavor preferences later in life

Ever wonder why your child loves to eat macaroni and cheese while her
best friend likes nothing better than a steaming bowl of cauliflower curry?
The answer may lie in part with what they were fed as young infants.
Researchers at the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia report that
feeding experiences during the first seven months of life may contribute to
food likes and dislikes.

"This research may help us to understand early factors involved in
human food preferences and diet choice, an area with many important health
implications. We can explore these early influences systematically by
studying infants who are breastfeeding, as well as babies whose parents have
decided to formula-feed," explains study lead author Julie Mennella, PhD.

As part of a research program aimed at understanding the underlying
basis for individual food differences, the Monell researchers compared
flavor preferences of bottle-fed infants raised on two different types of
commercially-available infant formula. One was a standard milk-based
formula. The second formula is called a protein hydrolysate because the
proteins are 'pre-digested' to help babies absorb them more easily. The two
formulas are similar nutritionally but differ markedly with regard to
flavor: milk-based formulas are described as bland and cereal-like, while
hydrolysates taste exceedingly unpleasant to most adults, bitter and sour
with a horrible after-taste.

In the study, reported in the April 2004 issue of Pediatrics, 53
babies were fed one of the two infant formulas for seven months. Starting at
about two weeks of age, one group was fed only the standard formula while a
second group received only the hydrolysate formula. Two additional groups
combined three months of hydrolysate feeding, introduced at different times,
with four months of standard formula. Because infants accept hydrolysate
formulas readily during the first four months of life, all babies were
content regardless of the formula they were fed.

At the end of the exposure period, all infants were given the chance
to feed both types of formula. The babies' behavior and the amount they fed
depended on which formula they had fed during the previous seven months.
Seven-month-old babies who had never fed the hydrolysate formula strongly
rejected it. In contrast, infants accustomed to the formula appeared relaxed
and happy while feeding, and drank more of the hydrolysate formula.

Mennella observes, "It is often difficult for parents to feed these
formulas to their babies because they think it tastes bad. These findings
reveal if the baby feeds this formula by three months of age, the baby
learns to like its taste."

These early influences persist to shape flavor preferences during
childhood - and perhaps longer. In earlier studies from Mennella's
laboratory, 4-to 5-year-old children fed hydrolysates during infancy were
more accepting of sour taste and aroma - sensory qualities associated with
these formulas - than children fed other formulas.

The current findings complement Mennella and co-author Beauchamp's
long-term research program on how breastfeeding infants learn about flavors.
Because breast milk transmits flavors of mothers' diets to nursing babies,
breast-fed babies are exposed to flavor experiences during the nursing
period. The Monell researchers suggest that this natural early flavor
exposure serves to establish flavors of the mother's diet - which will
subsequently be fed to the growing child - as acceptable and preferred.

Mennella comments on some of the implications, "Because we know that
flavor preferences established early in life track into later childhood,
eating habits in the growing child may begin to be established long before
the introduction of solid food."

The Monell Chemical Senses Center is a nonprofit basic research
institute based in Philadelphia, PA. Scientists at the Monell Center conduct
research devoted to understanding the senses of taste, smell, and chemical
irritation: how they function and how they affect our lives, from before
birth through old age. The Center's approach is multidisciplinary.
Scientists from a variety of backgrounds collaborate to address topic areas
in sensation and perception, neuroscience and molecular biology,
environmental and occupational health, nutrition and appetite, health and
well-being, and chemical ecology and communication. For more information
about Monell, visit the Center's web site at www.monell.org or email
inquiries to .